Reviews

MacBeth Re-Arisen
Posted by The Devil (admin) on Jul 26 2009
Reviews >> Theatre

Stars: ✪✪✪

Over his 11 years at the Fringe, your humble reviewer has seen many extraordinary sights but, you may take it for granted, he never thought that he would ever watch an undead Macbeth exhorting his zombie minions in iambic pentameter; and yet this is precisely what he has just seen.

Australian theatre group White Whale Theatre have created a real oddity; a sequel to Macbeth that makes modern day references and features a blatant homage—when evil goddess Hecate gifts a chainsaw to the undead Macbeth—to Evil Dead 2. This is really good fun and the writing is simply astounding; it sounds so like Shakespeare (right down to the rhyming scheme changes) that one is initially slightly confused as to whether it is a comedy or not. But rest assured: it is. The whole show is gloriously silly and is well-acted; not least by the wonderfully convincing disembodied hand that walks its way across the stage at the end.

So what is wrong with it? Put simply, it is too long. The show lasts almost two hours and your humble reviewer did feel his head nodding once or twice during the performance (although it had been a rather long day); this show would have been excellent had it been condensed to, say, an hour and fifteen. Further, some actors have a tendency to shout although the words are at least clear. Lady Macbeth though, was absolutely wonderful: it may be the first time that I have been attracted to a thoroughly evil, walking corpse.

Company: White Whale Theatre. Venue: Hill Street Theatre (Venue 41), Edinburgh Fringe 2006.

© Chris Mounsey August 2006 — Published on EdinburghGuide.com

Last changed: Jul 26 2009 at 2:16 PM